Survey: Global PC-based POS market up

March 1, 2011

New York City -- The global PC-based point-of-sale market grew a solid 6.9% in 2010, according to new research from IHL Group, a global research and advisory firm.

Shipments grew in all four major worldwide regions (North America, Europe/Middle East Africa, Latin/South America, and Asia/Pacific). Strong double-digit growth in the Asia/Pacific region was driven by new shipments in China, India, Korea, and Indonesia, according to the research.

"It was a strong year overall, but several threats appear on the horizon for this market," said Greg Buzek, president of IHL Group. "New mobile devices, inspired by the Apple iPad price point of $500, are a significant threat to the traditional POS market, particularly for specialty stores and hospitality establishments. Our recent research studies found that upwards of 50% of specialty retailers are looking to deploy handheld POS devices to replace many of their standard POS systems."

"In addition, increasing oil prices due to unrest in the Middle East will sap consumer's wallets, which will challenge retail sales in other segments beyond fuel," added Buzek. "Every penny of sustained increase in fuel prices takes $1.6 billion annually out of the pockets of consumers in the U.S. alone. If we go to a sustained $4.00 a gallon price point for a year, that is over $100 billion lost from the retail economy within the next year. That's the equivalent of Macy's, Staples, McDonald's, Publix, and Pizza Hut being removed from the U.S. economy. Worldwide, the impact could be far greater, all putting a drag on retail and ultimately POS spending."

Other key findings of the research include the following:

The shipshare of POS units with embedded operating systems from Microsoft increased to 34.1% worldwide.

Overall, 87.4% of POS terminals shipped were on DOS or Microsoft Windows platforms.

The shipshare of Linux terminals dropped from 10.1% in 2009 to 8.4% in 2010 worldwide but remains a popular choice in China, Russia, and several other countries around the world.

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